


Flickering Lights

by lossie



Category: Naruto
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, Depression, Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Team 7 is not okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:33:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lossie/pseuds/lossie
Summary: "Just like stars on the clear night sky, Sakura was flickering. In and out of focus, on a rollercoaster of what most people would call a disaster and she simply called her life." Post-war AU, eventual itasaku.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Itachi
Comments: 15
Kudos: 21





	Flickering Lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itachiuchihas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itachiuchihas/gifts), [AwaitTheRise](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=AwaitTheRise).



> I would swear it was supposed to be much shorter than this, but I think it's denial at this point. Originally, I wrote a version of this story in response to a Tumblr request from itachiuchihas back when in 2014, but I never got around to finishing it. This is a rewritten, improved and expanded version of the story (as sort of requested by AwaitTheRise).  
> Please enjoy and leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Before the war, before her world had been painted in greys, and before it had all basically gone to hell, Sakura took many things for granted.

Her life had been simple then. There was no need to take off the pink-tinted glasses she had been wearing with such naiveté it made her cringe to this day, because inside the walls of Konoha she was supposed to be and feel safe. No danger should have been able to touch her there.

Her innocence and the pureness of her soul were only a tip of the iceberg of things that she would have wanted to, but couldn’t keep forever. For a long time, far longer than was probably healthy or truly needed, she had been shielded from every danger. In her line of work, where death started to follow a person like a shadow the day they stepped outside the Academy doors as a genin, there was little to no possibility of living a life without knowing what it felt like to kill. Still, back then the gruesome stories about great battles that had brought pain and loss alongside victories where just that – just stories, which, while horrifying, couldn’t physically hurt her in any way.

The horrors she experienced for those few months after Pain’s invasion were a testimony to the fact that most of those stories weren’t meant to end with happily ever afters.

They had lost so many she couldn’t even remember the exact number, let alone any of their names.

Some of them had died on her table and under her hands. Some simply never came back from the battlefields. Some had protected her while some had sacrificed themselves for others. Some smiled when their time came and some did not. Some had been her comrades and some had been her friends, and some had been complete strangers, but no matter whom they were, they still should have had a chance to live longer.

Sometimes, when she had too much time to think, the guilt of the survivor threatened to swallow her whole. She couldn’t get the image of countless motionless face out of her mind and their blood seemed to be tattooed into the skin of her hands, even though she had killed far less than others.

Sakura was first and foremost a healer, but it didn’t mean she hadn't done things she would rather forget about.

Her hands were meant to bring relief and strength to those who needed it, but they could also crush bones, snap spines and break necks. They could also kill without spilling a drop of blood. When she looked at them – those small calloused palms with long graceful fingers and fingernails painted green – she was both amazed and terrified of the force held by the inconspicuous limbs.

People were so breakable; too breakable even. In a way, they reminded her of glass – no matter how much time you spent hardening and preparing it for the worst, there were still things that could make it shatter into pieces and when glass broke it was impossible to put it back together afterwards. A person could be just as fragile and just as likely to never recover.

She had never thought about such things before.

Now was a different story.

It took her months to stop going on autopilot and then another few to start talking about something other than work or the weather, even if she only barely existed at this point.

The house she and the boys had been given was the first major difference she needed to face after coming back to Konoha and it was a welcomed change. She didn’t know how she would have fared if she had been forced to live in her childhood home. Feeling relieved that the building was destroyed along with the rest of the village was not something she was proud of, especially considering her father’s death and her mother’s struggle with grief after his passing. Still, Sakura knew herself well enough to understand that it was better this way. A house haunted by the ghosts and memories of times gone by would have surely driven them both insane. 

The house she lived in now was big enough to give her and the boys space when they needed it, but was also small enough to serve as a cocoon of comfort during days when they couldn’t face the world.

It was a wooden two-story building in the west part of the village that was a perfect mix between modern and traditional.

The ground floor had a _genkan_ right at the entrance and the entire building had a beautiful wooden _engawa_ running all around it. The first room to the left was a living room, which was full of light during the day as faced the east and they rarely ever closed the _shoji_ , allowing warm rays of sunshine to illuminate and warm up the space. It was where Sakura liked to spent time the most. Next there was a spacious modern kitchen, which Naruto deemed his kingdom. For someone who was so obsessed with eating ramen, he could actually cook quite well and the things he made were, surprisingly enough, on the healthy side of the spectrum. There was also a restroom and two other rooms which they mostly used for storage. Scrolls, books and weapons of all kinds could be found there. Sakura had organized them in the way that made it easy to find anything within minutes.

The upper floor held four large bedrooms and a modest bathroom.

Living with Sasuke and Naruto was strange.

They tried to have breakfast together every day. It usually consisted of a bowl of rice and some _miso_ soup, with an additional plate of sliced tomatoes for Sasuke, all courtesy of Naruto, who was the earliest riser among the group. Sometimes, he would also make her a bento if she had a shift that day. It always had an array of cute faces made out of sliced baby carrots, pickled radishes, cucumbers, and grilled fish, and the thought behind this gesture never failed to make her feel warm all over.

After breakfast Sakura and Naruto would often train for a while. They were usually too busy to bother with lunch.

The only meal with a fixed time was dinner. Whoever was in charge of looking after Sasuke that day would make it and they would pick at the food in somewhat companionable silence, each one of them lost in thought.

Somehow they made it work, even if they were all fractured and still hurting inside.

Arguably, Sasuke had it the worst.

There were times when he would either start sobbing out of nowhere or go berserk on the first person who dared to simply look at him. He would routinely refuse to eat, he often didn’t leave his room for days at a time, and he barely said anything anymore. The only reason he wasn’t locked away in hospital was because Sakura and Naruto argued vehemently against it and instead took turns taking care of him at home.

The absolute worst were the days when Sasuke didn’t seem to have the energy required to engage with the outside world. The blank look in his eyes and the silent refusal to function in any capacity beyond the absolute basics scared them and they usually hovered over him just in case for however long it took him to snap out of it. Sometimes it was a few hours, sometimes a few days, sometimes weeks at a time. It was truly no wonder that the psychological evaluation showed that there was no saying if he would ever be able to return to active duty.

From a severe case of PTSD and depression to debilitating anxiety and unpredictable mood swings, the amount of trauma he had already suffered made him a shadow of a man.

There were times when Sakura would honestly wonder if keeping him alive was actually doing him any favours. She would sit next to him or just look at him and think about the mercy of a quick death; about the gift of finally being able to let go. 

Then the realization of what she was actually doing would hit her full-force. She would shake the idea away, feeling absolutely horrible about it, and try to forget it, but it would eventually rear its ugly head again.

The small consolation was the fact that Naruto had once admitted he had thought about it too. While it would have shocked her to hear him say that before life decided to screw them all over, she barely even blinked at this admission now.

After all, Naruto was just as broken as the rest of them. He had changed so much it was hard to see the loud-mouthed kid in the hard lines of his face and the sharpness of his blue eyes. Sometimes he was so quiet she could actually forget he was even in the room with her. She missed his joy more than words could describe.

He was coping in the same way she was – by keeping constantly busy. While he wasn’t allowed to go on missions, he didn’t seem particularly bothered by it. Instead he spent most of his time playing shogi with Shikamaru in various different places round Konoha as well as helping Kakashi in the Hokage office with the mountains of paperwork.

In comparison to her friends, Sakura was relatively okay.

There were nights when she had nightmares, but they were few and far between, mostly because she rarely ever slept. She fought the insomnia by exhausting herself to the point of passing out. When she actually managed to sleep for a few hours she woke up just as tired, but she didn’t care either way. She also couldn’t remember the last time she smiled. It must have happened at some point after their victory, she thought, but she had no recollection of actually doing it.

At the same time, she cried almost daily.

She cried for Sasuke who was slowly fading away. She cried for Naruto who was burning like a falling star. She cried for her grief-stricken mother. She cried for Kakashi who often seemed so lost, almost buried alive under the mounting pressure of back-breaking responsibly. She cried for her friends and for her village, and everything in-between.

And after she cried, she would wish for something unnamed that would take this all away.

Just like stars on the clear night sky, Sakura was flickering. In and out of focus, on a rollercoaster of what most people would call a disaster and she simply called her life.

Alright.

So maybe she wasn’t really okay.

But did she really care to be?


End file.
